Archive for July 2013

Crooked Timber’s Ingrid Robeyns writes about the new kings of the Netherlands and Belgium.

Will Baird at The Dragon’s Tales has a few links to interesting papers up: one describes circumstellar habitable zones for subsurface biospheres like those images on Mars; one argues that Earth-like planets orbiting small, dim red dwarfs might see their water slowly migrate to the night side; another suggests that on these same red dwarf-orbiting Earth-like worlds, the redder frequency of light will mean that ice will absorb rather than reflect radiation and so prevent runaway glaciation.

Eastern Approaches reflected on the Second World War-era massacres of Poles by Ukrainians in the Volyn region.

Geocurrents examined the boom in export agriculture in coastal Peru and the growing popularity of the xenophobic right in modern Europe for a variety of reasons.

GNXP argues that language is useful as a market of identity and that the term “Caucasian” as used to refer to human populations is meaningless.

Itching in Eestimaa’s Palun argues that, given Soviet-era relocations of population into the Baltic States, much emigration might just be a matter of the population falling to levels that local economies can support.

The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer argues that not only is the United States not trying to prolong the Syrian civil war, but that the United States should not arm them for the States’ own good. (Agreed.)

Registan’s Matthew Kupfer approves of the selection of Dzhohar Tsarnaev’s photo on the front page of Rolling Stone as being useful in deconstructing myths that he, and terrorism, are foreign.

Savage Minds considers how classic Star Trek seems out of date for its faith in an attractive and liveable high modernity.

Strange Maps’ Frank Jacobs examines the concept of the eruv, the fictive boundary used by Orthodox Jews to justify activity on the sabbath.

Window on Eurasia quotes writers who wonder if Central Asian states might continue to break up and suggest that Tatarstan might have been set for statehood in 1991 and should continue to prepare for future events.

Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell argues that human bias as expressed in opinion polls is, depressingly, not just a matter of easily-remedied ignorance.

The renowned Canadian artist Alex Colville has died at home in Wolfville, N.S., on Tuesday. He was 92.

[. . .]

His wife, Rhoda, who is often shown in his paintings -—as the woman looking through binoculars in To Prince Edward Island or nude in the light of the fridge in Refrigerator 1977 — died in December 2012.

Colville’s work often displays commonplace moments from his own life — himself and his wife walking on a beach or himself standing with his car. But there is something sombre or even ominous about the images.

[. . .]

While Colville’s images seemed to be taken directly from reality, he drew them from multiple sketches and studies, planning a perfect composition before he began to paint.

The painting process could take months — with layer upon layer of thinned paint painstakingly applied dot by dot to a primed wooden panel.

“Behind his words, as behind his art, you can sense elaborate webs of thought. And, also like his paintings, he stands quite alone, beyond category. It’s impossible to speak with him for a few hours without feeling his powerful sense of self. He is, it seems, a free man.” Robert Fulford wrote in Toronto Life in 2000.

The tranquil scenes are deceptive, because something about the relationship between figures or the nature of the landscape will convey loneliness, isolation, parting, work, leisure, estrangement, love.

“I see life as inherently dangerous. I have an essentially dark view of the world and human affairs .. Anxiety is the normality of our age,” Colville was quoted as saying.

My favourite painting of his is his 1965 To Prince Edward Island. The National Gallery of Canada’s page touches upon the mystery lurking behind the image. Who is the woman? What is she looking at, in what direction? Is everything as it seems? I’m quite used to the ferries of Prince Edward Island, having ridden them from an early age, but Colville’s problematization of the simple ferry ride caught my attention at a very early age.

Language Log takes a look at the failure of artificial intelligence as evidenced by the nonsensical conversations of a pair of Siri bots.

The Planetary Society Blog has a guest writer suggesting that even under NASA’s budget strictures, a Uranus probe could be possible.

Noel Maurer at The Power and they Money makes the case that arming the Syrian rebels shouldn’t be done, in that the outcomes produced by non-supply–a weakened regime or a weakened transition–are less threatening to American interests.

Towleroad links to a paper suggesting that homophobia is associated with fear of unwanted sexual advances.

Window on Eurasia quotes a Russian writer who argues that, if the Soviet Union had survived, immigration to Russia would have been substantially heavier and more politically controversial.

Centauri Dreams notes the thinking of Martin Rees and Freeman Dyson on the diaspora of life beyond Earth, noting that it’s going to require as much adaptation to new environments as it will (would?) the adaptation of existing environments.